Feel the Power (of a Backup Generator)

Following an incredibly cold snap at the beginning of the year, Max Maxfield decided to invest in a backup power solution.

As you may recall, April 2011 saw one of the largest and deadliest tornado outbreaks recorded in the USA. This outbreak affected the Southern, Midwestern, and Northeastern United States. Literally hundreds of tornadoes were confirmed by the National Weather Service (NWS), and more than 300 people were killed.

The two harest-hit states were Alabama and Mississippi. Did I mention that I live in Huntsville, Ala.? Our family and friends were very fortunate. We didn't suffer anything as bad as the devastation shown below in our subdivision, but areas close to us were hit very hard indeed.

Before the storm's full wrath unfurled, I was happily ensconced in the command chair in my office. My wife called to say, "The weather is starting to look real bad. You should come home." In my office, I sit with my back to the window. When I'm working, I'm pretty much oblivious to whatever is going on around me, so up until then I really didn't have a clue about what was happening. When I looked out of the window, I thought, "Hmm, that really doesn't look good." I closed everything down, powered everything off, unplugged all my computers, and headed out the door.

On the way home, I noticed that I was down to less than 1/8 of a tank of gas (petrol in the UK). I did think about filling up, but I decided it would wait until the morning. That afternoon and evening, all hell broke loose. As the Scottish poet Robert Burns famously wrote, "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men/Gang aft agley" (often paraphrased in English as "The best-laid plans of mice and men/Often go awry").

We do tend to lose power quite often when there's a big storm, but usually it's for no more than an hour or so. This time, one of the tornadoes took out the main power feeds from the Browns Ferry nuclear power plant. As a result, we were without power for 10 days. None of the gas stations could pump gas without electricity, and none of the stores could accept credit or debit cards. Overnight, we had been reduced to a cash (sometimes check, if you were lucky) economy.

One company I still talk about to this day is the Publix supermarket chain. As I wrote in a blog post shortly after the event:

Almost unbelievably, all of their stores in the area were up and running on Thursday – the morning after the storm. Someone told me that soon after reports started coming in on Wednesday about how bad the damage was, Publix had a convoy of tractor trailers loaded with generators on the road. They drove through the night to get their stores powered up by the morning. This was closely followed by other convoys of food, ice, and so forth.

This strikes me as organization of the highest level. Following earlier disasters the folks in charge of Publix have obviously put a lot of planning (and money) into all of this so as to be prepared. Also Home Depot was back in action really quickly. There were a couple of others, but these two companies really were on the ball and I will be giving them a lot of my business in the future.

As I mentioned earlier, we spent 10 days without power. Even toward the end, I was constantly surprised when I went into a room and flicked the light switch without thinking, and nothing happened. Also, I have now enjoyed enough freezing cold showers to last me for the rest of my life.

And it was a natural gas generator, you say? I'm surprised -- ours has turned out to be relatively quiet -- I mean you can certainly hear it, but it's nothing like as bad as a gasoline powered generator.

When the icestorm of about 20 Dec 2013 hit the American northeast, Toronto lostbpower for up ton2 weeks in the extreme. We were without power for 4 days at fridgid temperatures. The only house who had standby power in out area was across the road and one house down and had a natural gas backup unit. One of the circuits powered the outdoor lights.

The genrator was incredibly noisy and we could hear it through securely shut double glazed windows and several covers over our heads. And the irony was that the family was away on vacation with the lights light brightly like a beacon saying, go ahead rob me! Fortunately no one accepted the invitation.

@Elizabeth: I used to live in the San Francisco area so I experienced several earthquakes and it was always a suprise.

I was once in my room on a very high floor of a very large hotel in Tokyo, Japan when a pretty big earthquake occured. The hotel was swaying dramatically side to side -- windows rattling, pipes and metal screaching...

My room had two pretty large beds in it. Up till that time, I hadn't touched the minibar because the drinks were soooo expensive.

As soon as I realized what was happening, I made a lightning-fast evaluation that there was no way I was getting out of the hotel if it were to come down, so with (what I considered to be) great presence of mind, I leapt across the two beds and quaffed all of the scotch in the minibar. My reasoning was that, if I survived, I'd be happy to pay -- and if I died, I wouldn't care about the cost anyway LOL

At least with a tornado, you have some warning. They don't have warning systems for earthquakes yet. At least not ones that you can rely on. I used to live in the San Francisco area so I experienced several earthquakes and it was always a suprise. I was in a car on the freeway when the Loma Preata quake hit. It was several seconds before I realized that it was an earthquake and not a blowout. Good thing there wasn't much traffic at that point... We lost power for about 24 hours, the folk on the next street over didn't have more than a glitch in their power.

You've got me thinking about this now. I need to talk to the guy who is providing the solar panels for Field Day. He sells solar panels for peoples houses so he knows what's needed for the electrical switchover. He may also do generators...

I'd just do a solar instaliation but with my luck the disaster that causes the power to go out will be the one that leave a foot of snow on top of the solar panels.... Of course I'd probably still have to shovel out the generator unless I put a shed roof over it. The project is getting bigger by the minute and I haven't even started yet.

I think the number of houses that are hit as compared to the total number of houses that exist are relatively small, so insurance does cover this -- I know our insurance covers us -- I only hope we never have to use it...

@David: I guess when it happens as often and as near to you as this...

Re the picture in my column -- I'm not sure exactly where that was from -- but there are subdivisions within say 5 or 6 miles of us that were hit that bad -- completely flattened -- houses just dissapeared -- really scary

@David: I guess when it happens as often and as near to you as this, you probably get a bit blase about it, like people who live in earthquake zones...

You try not to think about it -- it's weird when you are all gathered in your "safe place" -- which for us is the middle of the house in the laundry room -- listening to the radio and there's a tornado on the way and the radio is saying "it will be in Athens at 5:10pm, Limestone at 5:20pm, Harvest at 5:25pm, Monrovia at 5:27pm..." And you think "We're in Monriovia..."

@David: ...what would be what it would be like to have your home utterly devastated as in your first pic. To come back - or crawl out of your cellar - and find your home gone or utterly trashed must be one of the most awful experiences there is.

I don't think you can possibly imagine this until it happens to you -- if you crawl out with all your family and friends alive then I'd say "Thank God" -- even worse would be to be separated from your family -- like having your kids at schoiol -- then racing to the school after the storm had passed and finding it gone -- that happened to a town in the USA not-so-long ago.